God of War: Chains of Olympus - God of War: Chains of Olympus

Score

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Which brings us to the game’s major flaw. I love Chains of Olympus, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s short. On normal or easy difficulty levels, you’ll happily crack it in five or six hours on your first play through. The existence of a video clip on ‘the lost levels’ as an unlockable bonus suggests that there was originally more planned for the game, and whether the additional content didn’t fit the story or just didn’t fit the schedule, you can’t help wishing that the game kept going that bit longer. On the plus side, it is a game you’ll be happy to fight through more than once, and you do get a number of unlockable bonus challenges to put Kratos’ combat skills to the rest.

The value for money angle is all that stops Chains of Olympus being our highest-rated PSP game ever. All the same, it’s one that every PSP owner ought to have in their collection, partly to see what Sony’s handheld can do when pushed to its limits, and partly because it’s such a blockbuster experience while it lasts. Fans of the series may carp a little about the limited weapon selection, the shortness of the game or the odd missing move, but weigh these things against the fact that this is easily the best attempt I’ve ever seen at bringing a full-scale console experience to a handheld, and they barely register on the scales. I hope it’s a title that will inspire other PSP developers to raise their game – it’s certainly one to make us raise our expectations.

”’Verdict”’

These chains are a little short for comfort, but otherwise this is the single best game on the PSP and one of the finest experiences on any handheld. Magnificent.